Casino Gambling Web Representatives Headed to Washington!

[TheEngineer]

My reply:

Dear Amy and Focus on the Family,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply to my inquiry on Focus on the Family’s stand concerning Internet poker. I read it with much interest and felt compelled to reply. I honestly don’t feel your advocacy of a total ban on Internet poker is in the best interests of your organization, and I’d like to share my thoughts with you on this.

Your organization thrives under freedom. The power you wish to give the federal government over our lives is the power the government will one day use against all Christians, including Focus. As I mentioned in my initial letter, you’ve essentially told the federal government that Americans cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, so I hope you won’t be surprised when preachers are prohibited from speaking against homosexuality and other issues (at risk of losing at least their tax exempt status). As you know, many feel discrimination is a moral issue as well. Many also feel the same way about gun possession, and I’m certainly not willing to initiate any process by which I end up surrendering my Second Amendment rights simply to keep people from choosing to play poker. Many of my fellow conservative Republicans feel this way, and we’ll vote for our freedoms. How will Focus fare under the Democratic majority you’re helping to create?

You mentioned that all laws are based on morality. I respectfully beg to differ. Theft may be immoral, but laws against it are based on property rights. Laws against murder are based on the right of the victim to life. Many pro-life people, me included, are pro-life not because of morality, but because we believe the unborn child has a right to life just as a “born” individual does. Even if you do believe freedom should be curtailed in the name of morality, you have not made the case that poker is immoral. Gambling is not prohibited anywhere in the Bible. In fact, your tortured “proof” that poker is a sin really only proves that your organization simply doesn’t like poker. Perhaps it doesn’t “seem” Christian to some. Sorry, but most of us believe God gave us His marching orders in the Bible and that we shouldn’t be in the business of inventing new sins. Does Focus feel the work God actually asked of us is done, such that you all feel compelled to figure out what’s next? If not, how much time and money is Focus taking from God’s work to work on curtailing freedom in America, and how much is too much? After all, you know my fellow poker players will be fighting hard for our freedom. Your ill conceived fight for big government will consume a lot of cash and political capital. Is it worth it?

Your citing of the experiences of Atlantic City, NJ was telling. First of all, it seems disingenuous that you chose the example with the most manipulable statistics to cite as average. The use of per capita stats appears disingenuous, as Atlantic City has many more tourists now than it had pre-gambling. As such, the city’s average daily population (which includes these many money-spending tourists) of Atlantic City is now much higher than the city’s resident population (which is used for per capita statistics). Were you trying to imply that crime rate increases were caused by former law-abiding citizens who were drawn to crime by gambling addictions? I hope not, as the reality is that crime went up simply as a result of increased economic activity, growth, and increased tourism; in fact, many believe any economic stimulus would have caused a similar outcome. And, the reality is that Atlantic City is far better off today than it was the day before gambling was legalized. Finally, this whole argument is better suited for “bricks and mortar” casinos and related zoning issues. As Internet poker does not cause any of the issues you attempted to show with the example of Atlantic City, it seems odd to cite this case as justification for an Internet poker ban.

Also, not all Internet gambling has been banned. Many Republicans schemed behind the scenes to allow Internet wagering on horseracing to continue. Why no Alert Warnings about this? Is Chad Hills okay with horse betting? Or, could it be that you all oppose all gambling…just some more than others? I imagine it’s hard to oppose your friends in Congress. It does seem hypocritical, though. After all, Internet horse betting is no less susceptible to the issues you cited than Internet poker. You can be sure the proponents of Internet poker will ask you why you support Internet horseracing wagering (at least implicitly by not opposing it with the same vigor as you do poker). What will you say? Will you stand for your friends, or will you stand for your principles?

Finally, I think your organization fails to understand the realities of poker. Poker is a game of skill that we play because we enjoy the challenges of the game. I think you feel everyone who plays is some kind of addicted gambler. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. A recent Harvard study concluded that only 0.4% of gamblers develop addictions. Why deprive the other 99.6% of their liberties when you could be at the forefront of helping those who actually need it? After all, they’ll find a bet somewhere. HR 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, funds treatment for compulsive gamblers while regulating the industry for fairness, age verification, and other issues. Wouldn’t your organization be better suited to provide this treatment and to air public service announcements warning of your concerns, so that Americans can make their own choices? I think you would.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Kind regards,

[1p0kerboy]

Very, very, very well written Engineer.

[eddytom]

Focus on the Family released an article today saying how they sent a letter to all members of congress and to all senators telling them to strongly uphold last year's UIGEA.

Casino Gambling Web then retaliated...

Not sure how to post this whole situation here, so here is a link to CGW's article, maybe someone else can do better...

http://www.casinogamblingweb.com/gamblin...gain_46822.html

[TheEngineer]

I started a thread earlier today about the new FoF warning, at FoF back at it again.

Thanks for posting the Casino Gambling Web link. We should add it to the FoF thread.

[oldbookguy]

Engineer, I just posted an action alert idea, we need to file complaints of abuse of 501(c)(3) status to IRS and we need to mass mail tomorrow congress with a rebuttal letter and try and get Casino Web to do a story of our efforts.

Can we do this?

obg

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
Engineer, I just posted an action alert idea, we need to file complaints of abuse of 501(c)(3) status to IRS and we need to mass mail tomorrow congress with a rebuttal letter and try and get Casino Web to do a story of our efforts.

Can we do this?

obg

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's discuss it over the weekend. That way we can look into the issue and the lawyers here can give an opinion. Hopefully we can do something. After all, the current Congressional leadership isn't exactly in love with these guys. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[oldbookguy]

Follow-Up Action Alert idea posted.

As to complaining, we can complain all we like to the IS, let them look into and decide, that is there jog.

LAWYERS, we need a generic basic complaint.....

obg

[Uglyowl]

I work for a credit union and any money I donate to be used for lobbying for the industry is not deductible.

Even if what FOF is doing with lobbying this hard with tax free dollars is legal, the laws need to be tightened up. Look at it this way, think of all the items that are not tax deductible to you (basic medical expenses), your child care costs are capped, etc. yet donations made to FOF are and some is used to lobby against online poker.

In essense, our government is subsidizing the fight against online poker.

There has been some arguments that churches should not automatically be given tax-exempt status, maybe this needs to be revisited.